The longer and longer A Kind of Hammerfall goes, the more and more distant I find myself from my (soon to be) former employees.
I suppose, on the one hand, it is a fairly natural reaction - after all, in a short time (one to two months) they will no longer by "my" employees but report to someone else. So they need to at some point not see me in that "in charge" mode.
On the other hand, I am reaching a certain level of detachment that I have not achieved in all the years I have managed people.
I am finding - in small ways - to have the courage to remind people - in a kind manner, of course - that their actions and behaviors are not leading them to the places they want to go and are not accomplishing the things they want to accomplish. I am more willing, in certain cases, to let people continue down a path that will lead to a form of action - because I have told them and they will simply not listen. Before, I would have just not mentioned it at all or found a way to make things work.
There is also a great deal of equanimity in my feelings about having reports and making decisions, a sort of serene calm that comes (I guess) with accepting the fact that all of this is really happening and allowing it to simply happen. I speak less and less at meetings now, make less and less direct decisions and leave more of them to the employees (they will, after all, have to do this in the not so distant future). In a way it has been like departing from any job: by the last day, leave yourself in a position where there is nothing to do because you have transitioned everything off to someone else.
It does make me wonder a bit about my new position, of course: I will have spent so long reducing my interaction and my decision making that it will feel foreign - and perhaps a bit uncomfortable - to have to do it again. And maybe that is okay - on the whole, I do not mind making them but I do not enjoy it.
But for now I will just continue to watch and perhaps slightly intervene as I can.
Day is passing and the evening is upon us.
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